Introduction

The term "cultivar" is used to describe a
clone of plants which cannot readily be identified as a particular
species or interspecific hybrid. Over the hundreds of years that houseleeks
have been cultivated many new forms have arisen as a result of
random crosses or mutations. Many of these have been given cultivar
names and propagated vegetatively by means of offsets.

In 1982 the Sempervivum Society, which at that time acted as
the International Registration Authority for cultivars, published
the International Register of Sempervivum and Jovibarba Cultivars
containing about a thousand named varieties. Since then many others
have been produced, mainly by individual enthusiasts, so there
are now several thousand named cultivars.

The Sempervivum Society is no longer in operation but a comprehensive
list of Sempervivum and Jovibarba cultivars has
been produced by Martin Miklánek and can be found at: http://members.tripod.com/~miklanek/

It is very easy to grow houseleeks from seed either by collecting
seeds from plants which have flowered or by potting up the self-sown
seedlings which have germinated in the pots of other plants. Such
seedlings often develop into attractive rosettes and one of the
fascinations of growing houseleeks is that anyone can raise and
name new cultivars. This has, however, resulted in many cultivars being named which
are very similar to each other.

Some years ago the Sempervivum Society operated an award scheme
for cultivars. New cultivars could be submitted to the Society
for evaluation and after two years trials, outstanding new plants
were given an Award of Merit (AM*). Cultivars which were
already in general cultivation, and which were considered to be
of special merit were given the following Rosette Awards.

GR* = Gold Rosette
SR* = Silver Rosette
BR* = Bronze Rosette

Most people grow houseleeks for their rosettes of leaves rather
than for their flowers but, although flowering signals the end
of that particular rosette's life, the flowers are often quite
spectacular. Red, pink and purple are the most common colours
but some varieties have yellow or white flowers.

In the following list, brief descriptions are given of some
of the better known, and a few of the more recently introduced
cultivars. The cultivar name is followed by the country of origin,
(AT = Austria; BE = Belgium; CH = Switzerland; CZ=Czech Republic;
DE = Germany; FR=France; NL = The Netherlands; UK = Great Britain;
US = United States of America) and a very brief description. The
descriptions can only be taken as a rough guide as the appearance
of the plants varies greatly under different growing conditions
and at different times of the year.

The symbol [P] after a name links to a photograph of that plant
in our collection. The gallery shows small versions of all the pictures. This has
been split into four alphabetical sections: Gallery: (A-E)(F-L)(M-R)(S-Z)